


wild strawberries.

by mage-pie (looselipssinksubs)



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Female Friendship, Fluff, Languages and Linguistics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 04:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21910330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/looselipssinksubs/pseuds/mage-pie
Summary: in which murder queen Irene gets to be cozy and soft. and also learns a new word.
Relationships: Attolia | Irene & Eddis | Helen, Attolia | Irene/Eugenides
Comments: 13
Kudos: 59





	wild strawberries.

**Author's Note:**

> many thanks to westwind for giving me the phrase “murder queen Irene” and also for beta-reading

It was very late when they got to the hunting lodge, and the only people completely awake were the guards who had slept in the wagon so they could be up for the night shift. They had gone on ahead to search the main building top to bottom and secure it before the royal party arrived. There were four monarchs to keep safe, now. Letting them find an assassin under the bed would be simply embarrassing. 

The remainder of the retinue was far less efficient when they piled out of the carriages. Irene deliberately stepped off the paving stones, thinking sleepily how nice it was to feel grass and twigs under her thin-soled slippers again. 

Tomorrow she might kick off her shoes and sit barefoot in the grass. It was a pleasant thought.

Inside the carriage, there was a whispered argument. Sophos was offering—or threatening—to pick up Eugenides and carry him out. Helen climbed out the other side and came up to stand beside Irene, yawning, winding her arm through Irene’s as though they were going for a stroll. 

“Do you”—a yawn broke the question, and she tried again—“do you have agriofraoula down here? In the lowlands?”

“Agriowhat?” That turned into a yawn too, though Irene remembered to cover her mouth. 

“You know. The little—the tiny little berries just like strawberries.” (Yawning.)

“Oh. With white flowers. Yes. We just call them—mm—wild strawberries.”

“Very inventive.” Helen leaned on her. They both managed to stop yawning, temporarily. 

Their husbands finally got out of the carriage. Around them, the various servants and attendants were unpacking trunks and boxes to carry into the house. Teleus came around the side, gave a perfunctory bow for politeness, and invited the four monarchs to come inside. 

“Damn these stairs,” muttered Irene as she climbed. She and Helen were still arm in arm, and she used her other hand to hold her skirts up. Helen, of course, had no trouble in her loose, flowing trousers. 

“Mhm,” agreed Helen. 

Teleus stood ready at the doorway, but Irene didn’t trip over the lintel this time. She had done so just once, years ago, but Teleus always watched out here after that.

Dear Teleus, she thought. It was a pity they couldn’t have Costis replace him when he finally retired. If it had to be someone else (and it would, one day), she liked the idea that it would be Costis standing solemnly at the top of the stairs, when they were all older. She hadn’t seen him and Kamet for some time, but he would return eventually, she knew.

“Mousetraps?” she asked. 

“Disarmed,” Teleus confirmed. 

“Mousetraps for assassins,” she explained to Helen, who smiled sleepily and made a little snapping motion with her free hand. 

They’d been sitting for hours, but they sat down again in the rough-hewn armchairs scattered about the entrance-parlor, while the servants readied the bedrooms. Irene’s attendant Chloe argued with a servant about which armoire held which bed-linens for the single and double beds, but Rhea came along to resolve it before Irene made up her mind to intervene.

Irene and Helen had sat down in the same huge chair that seemed designed for exactly one-and-two-thirds people. Helen put her head on Irene’s shoulder and said, “I hope you have a boiler here.”

“Only a small one, for the kitchen,” said Irene. “For baths we heat the water up the old-fashioned way.”

“Barbaric,” murmured Helen. 

“Terribly.”

“Who’s barbaric?” said Eugenides. 

“You are,” replied his wife, his cousin, and his best friend in unison.

“Predictable,” he grumbled. 

At last, it was time for bed. 

It had been tricky, sorting out all the extra attendants, even though none of them had brought their full retinues. Irene wasn’t supposed to know (though she found out anyway) that earlier there had been secret negotiations and favor-trading not to be in the bedroom next to Eddis and Sounis. The Attolians liked them well enough by now, but the two of them snored like bears. She wasn’t sure if she should tell Helen. 

“I didn’t know you had a special word for wild strawberries in Eddis,” Irene said when she was brushing out her hair in the bedroom. She had dismissed the attendants and was getting ready for bed on her own, enjoying having her husband’s eyes on her, glinting in the candlelight reflecting off the golden-brown wood panels. He was in bed already, waiting for her. 

“Agriofraoula,” said Eugenides. He spoke in his natural accent; she liked that too. “I didn’t know you didn’t have it.”

“Do you make jam out of them?” she asked curiously. 

“Too hard to collect enough of them, I think.” He held up the covers for her to climb in. The lumpy old mattress dipped in the middle. “You just find them by accident when you sit in the grass, hiding all around you, and eat all the ones you can reach.”

“We’ll find some tomorrow,” promised Irene. “I’ve seen them around here.” She reached for him under the blanket.

**Author's Note:**

> OVERLY DETAILED RESEARCH NOTE: Russian has a specific word for wild strawberries, distinct from regular strawberries, so I thought Greek might also. Looking up “земляника” (zemlyanika) got me the scientific name “fragaria vesca,” which turned up “αγριοφράουλα” in Greek and “χαμαικέρασος” in Ancient Greek. But since “χαμαικέρασος” appears to refer to strawberries in general and might even be for other plants as well, I went with αγριοφράουλα, transliterated as “agriofraoula,” instead.


End file.
